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People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran Photos

Support Human Rights and Democratic Change in Iran – How YOU can help

Amineh Qaraee, 34, and her brother Ehsan, 28, who fled the mullahs’ persecution to Norway four years ago, have a striking story. As children, they witnessed their parents’ arrest and imprisonment for supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization (PMOI/MEK), the main moderate Muslim group opposed to Khomeini’s theocratic rule.

“When I was just one-year-old my father got arrested, and two months later my mother got arrested with me and they took us to prison. There I had to live between people who got arrested and tortured just because they wanted freedom”, Amineh recounts.

“I spent some months in prison until they let my mother deliver me to my grandparents. My mother was in prison for more than two years and my father for four years.”

Soon after his release, Amineh’s father, a teacher by profession, was again arrested for his political opinions.

“Finally they informed us that they had killed my father and 30,000 other political activists even though all of them were sentenced to some years in prison, not execution”, she adds before breaking down into tears.

HOW THIS WILL HELP

According to the United Nations and human rights organizations, Iran has the highest rate of executions per capita in the world with the situation of human rights deteriorating during the Presidency of Hassan Rouhani. Reporters Without Borders has described Iran as world’s leading jailer of female journalists and Freedom House ranked Iran as the worst country for internet freedom in 2014. A number of political prisoners, including those associated with ethnic and religious minorities have been executed. One of these prisoners was merely charged with giving financial contribution to the TV station that supports the main opposition PMOI. Girls and women have been the main victims in Iran; many were target of acid attacks for “malveiling”.

Destructive meddling of Iran in the region is of growing concern. Amnesty International has disclosed many details on the war atrocities in Iraq of the Shia militias affiliated to Iran. Iran is at the heart of the crisis in this region and not part of the solution. If fundamentalism and extremism is to be uprooted in this region, Iran’s destructive influence and interference should end.

The situation of human rights in Iran needs to be heeded in all relations with this country. Iran should end the executions, free political prisoners, stop the repression of women and respect the rights and freedoms of the Iranian people.

Iran needs to adhere to all UN Security Council resolutions with regard to its nuclear program and it should respond to all outstanding IAEA questions while allowing intrusive inspections of all its military and non-military sites whether declared or undeclared.

Protection of Camp Liberty residents must be secured and ensured by Iraq, United States and the United Nations. Camp Liberty needs to be recognized as a refugee camp and its siege, in particular its medical blockade, must be revoked in its entirety.

Watch the live broadcast of the grand gathering in support of democracy and a non-nuclear Iran broadcast live on 13 June 2015 on www.ncr-iran.org.